SIR - Dilip Sarkar should read my letter again. It did not claim the Hurricane was equal to the Spitfire. Had the whole of my letter been published, he would have seen that I said the Spitfire was used to combat the ME109 fighters because of its superior speed, while the unprotected Heinkel III and Junkers 88 bombers were being destroyed by the slower Hurricane.
Hitler's main objective was to destroy our air power prior to invasion. Of the 1,700 enemy aircraft destroyed in 1940, the majority were bombers and that was the main reason why Hitler abandoned his invasion plans. Therefore, without the Hurricane, we would have lost the war because the production of Spitfires in 1939/40 was not enough to make the Hurricane obsolete. This is a fact that has been consistently and unfairly overlooked.
I was one of 12 Heenan and Froude staff trained to identify every known British and German warplane. I was on watch duty when the Meco was bombed by a Heinkel III not by a Junkers 88 as you claimed, Mr Sarkar. First-hand experience and knowledge are indelible and more reliable than modern statistics.
I M JARVIS,
Worcester
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